Let me rewind a bit. As long as I have known I wanted to have kids I knew I would make babyfood. While I don't remember my mom making my baby food I do remember her making my brothers. I specifically remember I would love helping her feed him simply because he was such a picky eater I ended up getting most of his food! As a teenager I actually tried babyfood a few times and thought it tasted well... disgusting. I remember playing this game "guess the babyfood". Its kind of sad when you can't figure out what the food is!
Fast forward to a few months ago. I started to hear people talk about "baby led solids" or "baby led weaning" or something saying they were "just doing table food". I thought they were INSANE. I mean, giving your 6 month old a whole chunk of avocado?? Wouldn't they choke? How could they eat that without teeth?!
And then I consulted google. Ahh google... as a side tangent here did you notice how over time browsing the web has become simply to google? So many times i'll say to someone "oh, i'll google it". Anyway... back on track here. First thing I discovered was baby led solids was not easy to track down... I had a hard time finding websites that were dedicated to it! But finally I did come across quite a few blogs people had done showing their kids eating food! I found these to be more informative then the websites that just contained basic information and Dos and Don'ts. I could actually see pictures and videos of these infants eating REAL table food!
The more I thought about it and the more I looked the more I realized "I want to try this!" It made sense to me. No special preparation of the food for starters... no boiling and steaming and mushing and purees. No special dinners for the baby. No, he would eat what we ate... or at least something from our plates. It also made sense to me that this way a baby self feeds and learns how to regulate how much they eat. When you have a puree and spoon feed your baby you are controlling how much they eat and what the eat. With this method the baby controls what they eat. The last thing that totally made sense was texture... most "first" foods are such a thin watery consistency which is NOTHING like real food. This gets babies used to eating real food... with texture!
I was sold! I have to say it is a little nerve wrecking to watch your infant shove an entire hunk of avocado in their mouth and then start gagging as a chunk goes a bit to far backwards. But this is NORMAL. Gagging is good and just means that their reflexes are working correctly. But at the same times its such a delight to see Eirik shove something in his mouth and go "this has a taste!" and then shove it back in again. It also makes dinners more interactive and fun. Instead of us trying to spoon feed him we are eating ourselves and watching him eat... or attempt to!
Just be prepared for a mess!
Thanks for the explanation, Emma! I really like the idea of it. I had read an article about older kids, toddlers and preschoolers, a while ago and how you can try to keep them off the chicken nugget/mac&cheese carousel that so many parents are on, where their kids refuse to eat anything else. The article basically said that while you should never force your child to eat things they don't like, what you should try to do is have them eat the same thing as the adults are eating, modified if need be (like if you made pasta for the adults but the red sauce is too acidic for the child, to make them pasta with butter). It sounds like baby-led solids is a good start to that! Like I've told you before, Finn reminds me of Eirik, so I have a feeling he'll be a good eater too, when we get there ;).
ReplyDeleteI think this is such a great idea Emma! And it honestly makes a lot of sense! =o)
ReplyDeleteSuch a cute picture =) I was waiting for the mess with avacado pic *lol* I'll have to read more on this...sounds very interesting!
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